"Prison Realm, open."
Following that whisper,
the multi-eyed cube suddenly unfolded in all directions, resembling a peeled orange.
It revealed an indescribable, viscous darkness.
Within that darkness, a powerful binding force instantly locked onto Satoru Gojo.
"What..."
Satoru Gojo's pupils constricted violently.
At this moment, even his Six Eyes were unable to analyze the structure of this cursed object.
No.
It wasn't that he couldn't analyze it; it was that the aura of this cursed object made him feel an instinctive...
loathing.
"Hey, Satoru."
"Long time no see."
A figure wearing Gojo-kesa robes stepped out from the depths of the dark tunnel.
He wore that signature, warm smile on his face.
That smile.
Satoru Gojo knew it all too well.
It belonged to the best friend he once trusted most, the one he had killed with his own hands...
"Suguru... Geto?!"
In that instant, Satoru Gojo's brain
felt as if it had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
Boom!
Countless memory fragments flooded into his mind like a broken dam.
The blue sky from their time at Jujutsu High.
The soda they shared that summer.
The era when they felt like the strongest, even if it was just the two of them.
"How is this possible..."
"I clearly..."
"...killed you with my own hands!"
Satoru Gojo's body froze.
For someone with the Six Eyes, nothing in this world could deceive his vision.
The residual dregs of cursed energy, the physical structure, and even the subtle habits and movements of the person before him...
They were exactly like Suguru Geto's!
The Six Eyes told him: This is Suguru Geto!
But his soul roared: This is absolutely not Suguru!
"Don't look at me with that expression,"
the 'Suguru Geto' said with a laugh.
"I'll get shy."
In that briefest of moments,
Satoru Gojo's brain fell into a temporary overload while trying to process this extreme contradiction.
For an ordinary person, this might have been just a momentary lapse in focus.
But for the Prison Realm,
this moment was an eternity.
"One minute of brain-time."
"Condition met."
Buzz!
The Prison Realm suddenly erupted with a terrifying suction force.
Countless black tentacles reached out from the darkness, tightly binding Satoru Gojo's limbs.
"What...?!"
Satoru Gojo tried to struggle,
but he found that he couldn't mobilize his cursed energy at all.
"This is a Special Grade Cursed Object prepared specifically for you."
"The Prison Realm."
"Formed from the physical remains of Monk Genshin after his passing."
"Within this barrier, you cannot use cursed energy."
The fake 'Suguru Geto' walked up to Satoru Gojo.
His smile remained gentle, but his eyes were filled with cold calculation.
"Good night, Satoru Gojo."
"Let's meet again in the new world."
Satoru Gojo stared intently at the man before him.
In his azure eyes, the original shock and confusion had vanished, replaced by an endless, freezing rage.
"Who..."
"...are you?"
The 'Suguru Geto' seemed to enjoy this moment. He reached up, grabbed his own scalp, and
slowly peeled it back.
Revealing the brain with a mouth inside.
"You can call me whatever you like."
"But for now, I am Suguru Geto."
"At least, this body is."
The moment he saw that brain, Satoru Gojo understood.
So that was it. That was how.
It wasn't that Suguru had been resurrected; someone had desecrated his corpse!
"I'm going to kill you."
Satoru Gojo's voice was frighteningly calm.
But anyone could hear the celestial-shaking fury contained beneath that stillness.
"Even if I'm sealed,"
"I will definitely kill you."
"And..."
Satoru Gojo suddenly looked up, his azure Six Eyes staring deep into the soul of the person before him, as if calling out to something.
"Suguru!!"
"Just how long are you going to let yourself be used by a disgusting thing like this?!"
"Wake up!!"
Satoru Gojo's roar echoed within the deathly silent barrier.
In the next second,
a terrifying scene occurred.
Clap!
The 'Suguru Geto' who had been laughing triumphantly suddenly had his right hand fly up uncontrollably, grabbing his own throat in a death grip!
The force was so great that his neck bones emitted an overwhelmed creaking sound.
"Cough... *ack*!"
Kenjaku's laughter came to an abrupt halt, his face instantly flushing red from suffocation.
For the first time, genuine shock and disbelief appeared in those narrowed eyes.
"What?!"
"This body... is defying me?"
"Impossible! The connection between the body and soul should have been completely severed by me!"
Kenjaku tried to pry the hand away, but it was like an iron vice, unmoving.
Not only that,
he could feel a will deep within the body that should have been dormant, frantically reviving because of Satoru Gojo's call!
That will was so scorching, so furious.
Like a sleeping volcano on the verge of eruption!
"Ha... Haha..."
Watching this, Satoru Gojo, though bound by the Prison Realm, suddenly burst out laughing.
He laughed freely, wildly.
"See that?"
"I knew it."
"There's no way a guy like you... could lose so easily to a gutter rat like this!"
Kenjaku's expression turned incredibly ugly.
He exerted all his strength, even using cursed energy to reinforce himself, before he finally managed to loosen the grip on his throat slightly.
"The body is the soul, and the soul is the body..."
"I see. So that's your theory, Suguru Geto?"
Kenjaku gasped for air, his eyes dark and sinister.
"What an astonishing obsession."
"However..."
"...this is as far as it goes."
He violently surged his cursed energy to forcibly suppress the right hand's resistance. Though the body was still trembling and the will was still roaring,
under the suppression of the Prison Realm, everything was already decided.
"Then I'll look forward to it."
"But before that..."
He gave a gentle push.
The binding force of the Prison Realm instantly intensified, and Satoru Gojo's body began to be pulled uncontrollably toward the dark cube.
"It's time to say goodbye, Strongest."
Kenjaku gave a gentle push.
The binding force of the Prison Realm intensified once more.
Satoru Gojo's body began to be pulled uncontrollably into the dark cube.
Just as Satoru Gojo was about to be completely swallowed, he suddenly smiled.
"Hey."
"I don't know who you are,"
"but haven't you forgotten one thing?"
Kenjaku's smile stiffened slightly.
"What?"
Satoru Gojo struggled to lift his head, looking toward the top of the pitch-black tunnel.
As if piercing through the thick layers of rock, he saw a red meteor falling at extreme speed.
"Among my students,"
"there is a monster even more unreasonable than me."
Rumble...!!!
Before his words could fade,
the entire ceiling of the Shibuya subway station suddenly collapsed.
A crimson blade light, like a meteorite falling from the highest heavens, tore through the sky.
Carrying a terrifying high temperature capable of incinerating all the filth in the world,
it slashed straight toward Kenjaku!
In that moment,
Kenjaku's pupils shrank to pinpricks, and every hair on his body stood on end.
"Who is it?!"
The red light arrived.
It was a sharp edge capable of cutting through anything.
But to Satoru Gojo's shock, just as the red light representing hope was about to touch the ground,
the lid of the Prison Realm slowly slid shut.
The world
plunged into darkness.